I mean if you can stack 5 regen, Maexna will be trivial.However on some other bosses, Crushing+Hit = instant dead tank

and this is why i think healing has been ruined by wow 2.0 what about constantly refreshing a hot and being helpless to prevent spike damage (the only challange sense hots do all the work for you in mana conservation) sounds fun? gg blizz

Oh, and just to further get in the last word, if you ever feel tempted to include "gg blizz" in one of your posts, you probably shouldn't be making that post at all.

Re-opening per request from the OP since he has some further thoughts to add -- provided the discussion is on the new armor formula, which is interesting, and not "hey guys how will stacked HoTs affect Patchwerk and Maexxna??".

Is there another thread where the armor value change has been discussed? A quick thottbot check seems to show that epic gear gets an armor buff (wrath, epic heroism) where non-epic gear does not (blue heroism). Rings and weapons don't receive an armor buff even when epic. Is only the "expected armor value" gettting buffed? So if we had an epic plate item with some itemization value devoted to armor would only its base armor be increased by the patch/beta?

I ran some quick numbers, taking into account the change in how much armor is on our gear. It seems for tanking types, it will be right around a 10% dps increase on bosses (like MT going from 10k->11k unbuffed armor, or druid going from 15k->17k).

Am I totally retarded that when I see 10k-11k and 15k-17k armor.. I think of more mitagation and not less? Could someone explain using very tiny words?

also thanks for reopening the thread.

\"Listen, I\'m trying to have a serious conversation about ferret bras and you are not listening\"

So if we had an epic plate item with some itemization value devoted to armor would only its base armor be increased by the patch/beta?

Correct. Increasing base armor via item budget is done by a static amount and not a scaling amount, so having the base get increased does not change that (base amount (scaled up in TBC) + item budgeted extra AC (static)).

I ran some quick numbers, taking into account the change in how much armor is on our gear. It seems for tanking types, it will be right around a 10% dps increase on bosses (like MT going from 10k->11k unbuffed armor, or druid going from 15k->17k).

Am I totally retarded that when I see 10k-11k and 15k-17k armor.. I think of more mitagation and not less? Could someone explain using very tiny words?

also thanks for reopening the thread.

I assume he's just referring to the difference, since tanks rarely decrease in armor over the long-term.

I ran some quick numbers, taking into account the change in how much armor is on our gear. It seems for tanking types, it will be right around a 10% dps increase on bosses (like MT going from 10k->11k unbuffed armor, or druid going from 15k->17k).

Am I totally retarded that when I see 10k-11k and 15k-17k armor.. I think of more mitagation and not less? Could someone explain using very tiny words?

also thanks for reopening the thread.

As I understand from this topic, boss level is being increased for the purposes of armor damage reduction. So while your armor will increase, the amount of damage it reduces will go down because the level of mob beating on you will be higher.

I thought Shadow Embrace only affected damage dealt to the warlock, making it a pretty crappy talent?

As for bear tanks, I wouldn't worry about them. While 2.0 probably doesn't include the latest updates that are in the beta, there are so many massive buffs that'll make bears just fine in the expansion.

As I understand from this topic, boss level is being increased for the purposes of armor damage reduction. So while your armor will increase, the amount of damage it reduces will go down because the level of mob beating on you will be higher.

hmm, as i understand it bosses are level 63's right now. Is that incorrect or it going up with the patch? Also does this mean our mitigation against equal levels will be increasing substantially?

Sorry if I'm missing something, I feel dumb.

\"Listen, I\'m trying to have a serious conversation about ferret bras and you are not listening\"

Lord BEEF, in the Warlock tBC thread, people have confirmed (in the last few pages of it, as of this date) that Shadow Embrace affects the MOB (ie all targets).

Evert - Our most recent guesswork, indicates that the (skull) indicator on a mob, doesn't actually mean it's a certain level, it just means that for all these calculations, the mob is counted as Player Level + 3.
This was worked out, because as people levelled up, Patchwerk (and other bosses) were suddenly hitting harder, while the people were using the exact same gear.

Boss scaling is hard coded to 3 levels higher then players in raid. It has an un inteded side effect on the Beta servers atm to where it's calculating bosses to 73, making Patchwerk pretty assrape. Again, unintended. People worry way too much about this.

The armor formula on the other hand, 10,3k ac at 70 is barely 50% mitigation, where as 9.6 is 63% on live

Lord BEEF, in the Warlock tBC thread, people have confirmed (in the last few pages of it, as of this date) that Shadow Embrace affects the MOB (ie all targets).

Ah excellent. I apologize for not keeping better track myself.

One thing I've been hearing is that just how fragile non tanks are as a result of the armor and health scaling. If you're not a tank, you'll die faster to an untanked mob in the expansion than you would in live, possibly due to the armor scaling change.

edit: I'm not stating this as fact, just wondering if this agrees with the experiences of others

Besides Shadow Embrace, there's also Scorpid Sting, which will be adding a 5% miss rate. Combined, and perhaps with some other ability I don't know of, this will neutralize much of the overall DPS increase, but Shadow Embrace helps against spikes, while Scorpid does not...

So, in the end we may be able to balance it, but it's going to force at least one warlock into a particular spec, and force at least one hunter to be the scorpidier.

One thing I've been hearing is that just how fragile non tanks are as a result of the armor and health scaling. If you're not a tank, you'll die faster to an untanked mob in the expansion than you would in live, possibly due to the armor scaling change.

edit: I'm not stating this as fact, just wondering if this agrees with the experiences of others

I'd wager a lot of that is because they aren't replacing t2.5 or t3 with the new items until they approach level 70. As a result, they're going to have much lower stamina than the content is scaled for.

I definitely feel much more fragile on my rogue. At first I thought it was just a nasty combination of paranoia and rapidly degrading dodge/parry (I'm at about 38% dodge on live today and I'm down to 34% by level 64). On live today, I can pick up most trash mobs up through AQ40 and tank them for a short period of time with some heals. I think most rogues will have a hard time doing that much beyond Coilfang until they start replacing their raiding gear.

The middle levels are going to be hard for me just because the TBC gear isn't a dps upgrade until the mid 60's, but it may be a survivability upgrade due to the higher stamina values. Anything t2 or beyond is going to be better dps than the blues/greens for some time (depending on set bonuses, etc), but the content is scaled for higher stamina gear. I think this is part of the reason you hear a lot of rogues complaining. We really haven't seen all the high end gear to get a feel for our scaling yet.

My tank definitely feels much more survivable, but that's a function of better protection talents, higher armor values on existing gear (that get another 10%), and frequent upgrades. There's so many new talents that make a tank so much tougher to kill than they were before, that it's hard to make a fair comparison.

Besides Shadow Embrace, there's also Scorpid Sting, which will be adding a 5% miss rate. Combined, and perhaps with some other ability I don't know of, this will neutralize much of the overall DPS increase, but Shadow Embrace helps against spikes, while Scorpid does not...

So, in the end we may be able to balance it, but it's going to force at least one warlock into a particular spec, and force at least one hunter to be the scorpidier.

One of our hunters has tried Scorpid Sting on a raid boss (one of the green dragons I believe) and they were definitely immune. On top of the new improved thunderclap and several other effects I can only imagine that this will be the case for all raid bosses, it would simply add up to too much otherwise.

In terms of the armor reduction changes being discussed, it seems that for most cases it either wont be too big of an issue (I'd welcome the extra rage on Noth) or we will be able to mitigate the difference with judicious use of lay on hands (most likely on Loatheb). The only fight which I can think of where this will really be a big problem is Patchwerk and honestly, I don't see it being as big of one as many people think, the real issue will be whether guilds who've been farming him for months will be prepared to sit through healers essentially re-learning the fight.

One of our hunters has tried Scorpid Sting on a raid boss (one of the green dragons I believe) and they were definitely immune. On top of the new improved thunderclap and several other effects I can only imagine that this will be the case for all raid bosses, it would simply add up to too much otherwise.

I'd be interested in hearing more about testing for that, I remember fighting the curator in Karahzad (semi-significant named partway in, drops tier 4 gloves) and he was immune to thunderfury's slow (but not the damage or nature debuff), the only other mobs to date that I remember being immune are those that are immune to nature, the other warrior said he was immune to thunderclap as well, at the time I chalked it up to some bizzare side effect of Curator being immune to arcane damage, but combined with the above, I think they may just be nuking slow effects sticking to certain nameds, anyone else have evidence to support/disprove, or should this perhapse be splintered to another thread?

One of our hunters has tried Scorpid Sting on a raid boss (one of the green dragons I believe) and they were definitely immune. On top of the new improved thunderclap and several other effects I can only imagine that this will be the case for all raid bosses, it would simply add up to too much otherwise.

Prolly be wiser to try Scorpid Sting on a boss not immune to nature spells.